Parking could open up at Goose Rocks Beach on May 15

Friday

KENNEBUNKPORT — Selectmen are expected to vote on whether to reopen 39 parking spaces at Goose Rocks Beach when they meet on Thursday, May 14.

If reopened, the spaces — located between Broadway and Belvidere Avenue — would be available only for Kennebunkport residents between Friday, May 15, and Sunday, May 31.

While Goose Rocks Beach has remained open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the town closed all parking there in April as a means to cut down on the number of people there and help enforce social distancing.

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Richard Driver, the chair of the Goose Rocks Beach Advisory Committee, presented to selectmen at their meeting on Thursday a recommended phased approach for reopening a majority of the parking spaces at the beach between now and mid-July.

To restrict the 39 spaces to residents, selectmen will need to form a regulation allowing the town to do so. Currently, the town’s regulations and ordinances only require seasonal beach parking stickers, available to residents and property taxpayers, starting on Memorial Day Weekend.

According to Driver, the committee recommends opening the 39 spaces to everyone on June 1 — and making 19 more spaces available on Dyke Road that day, as well. From there, the committee suggests reopening another 28 spaces between New Biddeford Road and Broadway on June 15. Lastly, the committee recommends reopening 35 spaces between Belvidere and Bellewood avenues on July 1 or July 15, depending on the size of beach crowds during that time.

“That would open 70 percent of the parking spaces,” Driver said.

Selectwoman Sheila Matthews-Bull, the selectmen’s appointee to the advisory committee, said she disagreed with only opening up 70 percent of the spaces.

“I think we have x-amount of parking places and by July, or at least by mid July, I would like to see all of the spaces open,” Matthews-Bull said.

Driver replied that the recommended phases were not “cast in concrete.”

“We can take a look at it as we move into the summer,” Driver said, adding that the status of the pandemic and decisions by Governor Janet Mills will be among guiding factors. “In some respects, we’re suggesting being more liberal in the use of the beach than the surrounding communities.”

Driver said the committee also recommends not selling daily parking stickers — which tend to attract “day trippers” to the community — until June 15, the date around which the general store at the beach opens and starts selling them. Driver added that the committee would meet during the first week of June, however, and discuss whether to extend the halt on daily stickers beyond June 15.

“There was a general sentiment among the Beach Advisory Committee members that daily stickers would not be a good idea this year,” Driver said.

Driver told the selectmen that the committee also recommends not issuing fire permits this summer, as fires are places for people to gather and therefore make social distancing difficult.

The committee also recommends banning people from storing equipment — umbrellas, canopies, chairs, tents and more — on the beach overnight. Driver said police would tag belongings left overnight and inform their owners that their items would be subject to confiscation.

While the board of selectmen will vote on those first 39 spaces on May 14, it will be taking more time to discuss the committee’s further recommendations. The board did, however, act on two other committee recommendations when it met on Thursday.

The board voted 4-1 to authorize Town Manager Laurie Smith to prepare language toward enacting an ordinance that would give the Kennebunkport Police Department permission to tow vehicles for illegal parking. Currently, the police do not have such authority.

Smith will post an advance notice of the public hearing selectmen will be required to hold before voting whether to enact.

The new provision would be built into the town’s Traffic and Parking Control Ordinance and would be applied town-wide.

Matthews-Bull was the dissenting vote.

“As a business person ... I don’t think it speaks well for our community,” she said. “I would rather raise the price of the (parking violation) ticket, as opposed to tow.”

As they have in previous years, selectmen on Thursday also approved $3,000 in funding for a volunteer coordinator at the beach.

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